3 Months Ago

Dovar stirred to awareness slowly. Blinking, he tried to make sense of the dark room. It was cold and damp. The stonework underneath had long since siphoned the heat from his body. His clothes felt crusty and stiff against him.

Coughing once, he pushed to his feet. He swayed in the darkness, lacking any reference of location. He blinked and shifted, feeling the ache in muscle and bone.

“Right,” he muttered. “Advancement.”

A stench lingered in the air. Ash, smoke, and the sour smell of unwashed body. He winced, realizing he was the source of the last smell. Staggering forward, Dovar reached out a hand until he found a wall. Slowly, keeping contact with the bricks, he walked until he came to the stairs.

He kicked something on the way, sending it rattling across the floor. It took him a moment to find it again. Parts crumbled away in his hands. The torch handle had enough strength to remain in one piece, even if it was burned down to barely more than a handful.

Finally, he found the stairs and made his way up. The door pushed open on whining hinges. Afternoon light washed through the windows in the hall, revealing the dust laden windowsills and bare walls. A few stands and tables were left, but most of the house had been cleared of furniture. Dovar certainly didn’t need it anymore.

His boots echoed on the stone as he passed through the empty mansion. All that was left of his house and home. Reaching the main hall, he found the only painting that was still left within the house. His father’s face was cut out, just like his sisters. He hadn’t touched his mother’s, though she was no less dead than the rest of them. All that remained was little Asny.

She’d had her hair done up in two little tails for the drawing. A front tooth was missing from her smile. Dovar remembered her more clearly as this happy child than the girl now living with her cousins. Maybe he just wanted to remember a better time.

He continued further into the mansion, passing empty lounges, dusty guest rooms, and abandoned servant’s quarters. The home of his childhood, finally in Dovar’s hands, yet emptier than it had ever been. Sworden’s home no longer. Just Dovar.

Finally reaching his own room, Dovar stepped inside. His bed was in disorder. Clutter strayed the space liberally. All the things he hadn’t been let go of yet. Some of his mother’s clothes were getting musty in a pile in the corner. Father’s old sword was lying against the wall, spotted with rust. His past two weeks of clothes covered the stonework like a carpet.

The mirror had been kicked over, leaning against the bed. The wooden frame had splintered where his boot hit it, but the polished metal had only dented. Feeling a twinge across his chest from the failed advancement attempt, Dovar straightened the length of polished copper.

Gaunt. Dovar barely recognized himself. Veins showed clearly on his forehead, temple, and down his neck. His eyes were deep set and large in their darkened sockets. Clenching his teeth at the visage only revealed the striations in his jaw and neck muscles.

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He showed the mirror over again, slamming it into the wall before it fell to rest against his bed. He changed out of his old clothes, considered taking a bath, but realized he didn’t have easy access to water.

Shrugging, he dumped his old clothes on floor and picked out another set. He paused, looking at the old uniform. Clothes from better days. He put on the academy clothes, feeling their slack in his neck and arms, yet how it felt slightly too short on the legs and wrists.

He turned toward the kitchen then. He’d set a pot to boiling before he’d gone to attempt advancement, yet he hadn’t returned yesterday. The fire had long since burned out.

He reached in and pulled out the potato. It’d gone mushy. He grimaced and took a bite of it. It was bland and soft, but his stomach applauded him eagerly for the attempt. Scarfing the rest of it down, Dovar went looking for what else he had left.

The old freeze box had long since run out of power and all it held were more potatoes. Grimacing, Dovar put the soil, covered the vegetable back and straightened. He’d figure something else out later.

He staggered around the mansion for a while, but eventually, like always, he passed the letters. First, the unanswered ones. Envelopes discarded on the ground, their contents disgorged on top in a jumble. Then in a small heap, the unopened once. These envelopes had toppled off the stool he’d put them on, splaying across the floor like their slightly more used relatives.

Picking one up, he saw it dated to a year and a half ago. “From Grevor,” he muttered, flipping it around to look at the back. “Couldn’t even bother to come visit,” Dovar dropped it where he found it and moved on.

Later, Dovar made it to the only other living thing on what had once been the Sworden estates. In some ways, it was the only living thing left. His mother’s emberleaf stood tall in the sun, its canopy rich with its orange coloring and dark bark.

He stood on the second-floor, looking out the broken window to gaze at the tree. The setting sun’s light played on the leaves as they rustled in the wind. Bowing, he went through the window and onto the roof. He winced as it stretched something strained in his back. Knuckles cracked and snapped like an old man’s as bore his weight.

He straightened with a sigh as he got both feet on the roof. He looked beyond the tree. The Sworden estate had once been mighty, even now its skeletons showed a strength that remained still. On the roof of the first floor, Dovar could look out over most of Elusria City. He could see the rest of the city going through their mundane lives, catch glimpses of people moving and selling in the market squares. In the distance, beyond even the wall, he could make out the dark shape of a tower, though nothing more of the Academy’s compound.

Something was moving from the tower to the city, he noticed. Light reflecting off a thousand small particles. “Ice,” he realized, watching it flow through the air. He couldn’t reach them with his tether-sense, but he recognized the effect. An ice-tethered.

They moved directly for the city, pausing only briefly at with the guards before entering. For a moment, he thought it might be Sansir, returning for some reason. Perhaps he’d come visit?

He couldn’t see the figure traveling through the streets as they were restricted from dangerous use of their powers, but he could imagine him. Bald and tall, making his way through the crowds.

Dovar sat down on the roof to wait. He would come visit him, he was sure.

Time passed. The sun set. The night grew cold. Dovar sighed and let his head hang. Sansir wasn’t coming. No one was. No one ever did. He licked his lips and closed his eyes, diving into the center of his being. He just needed a little push, a little something, and everything would turn around. Grabbing all the power available in his tether, Dovar pushed against his Disciplines until his body strained and bits of smoky particulate gathered around his body.